


Nähdään Myöhemmin

by Leela



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 19:25:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leela/pseuds/Leela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the last morning of their life together, Adam gives Sauli a coffee and bagel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nähdään Myöhemmin

**Author's Note:**

> **Prereaders** : @aislinntlc, @toobusy2write, and @moodwriter (for her help with the Finnish)
> 
> **A/N** : One phrase in the article that announced Adam and Sauli's breakup stuck with me. "I just gave him a coffee and bagel earlier today." Somehow this fictional moment was born from that innocuous statement.

Sauli sat on a high stool at the bar in the kitchen, facing the long windows, and watched the world outside. The clouds were still dull, overcast and heavy as they were so many mornings, but the city below felt alive. And in the distance, the water continued its push and pull, moving in and out between the beach and the ocean, with people, hopeful surfers, bobbing here and there.

He was going to miss this, so much of this. He bent his head and looked away, down at the last juice he would make in this apartment that wasn't quite, would never be his home in the ways that the house they'd shared had been.

The click of the door, the momentary brightness of a neighbor's greeting and Adam's quiet reply, made him jump. It was the match to the one from an hour or so earlier, when Adam had snuck out of the apartment without talking to him. Sauli didn't get up though. He just turned his gaze back to the world outside.

"Hey," Adam said, bringing the scents of coffee and himself into the kitchen. The cologne he'd worn the day before was almost gone, but Sauli breathed it in anyway. 

This he would miss too.

"Hei hei," Sauli replied automatically, because he was empty of words — in English and in Finnish. He'd said them all over the last few days, weeks. 

Adam was holding a bag and two travel mugs — their mugs, one black and one red — and he put the red mug on the counter in front of Sauli, pushing away his green juice.

"One last morning," Adam said, and he handed Sauli a bag that could only be one thing. 

Laying the bag on the counter, Sauli tore it open. One bagel, from his favorite place in the valley, and all the fixings for a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon that was no less good for being not quite the same as the kind he'd known from Finland. A smile curled one corner of his mouth. Words in Finnish choked him, but he managed to find, "Thank you" among them.

"I wanted." Adam pulled off his baseball cap and tossed it toward a chair. He missed as he always did, but Sauli let it go, as he hadn't done recently. "Just one last time." 

Sauli's smile grew a little, and his heart ached with a love he knew he'd never completely lose. 

"Sit," he said, kicking at the other stool. As Adam did as he was told, for a change, Sauli got up to get the things he needed, knives and forks and the capers that the restaurant never seemed to have. 

As Sauli busied himself, putting their breakfast together, smearing cream cheese and piling on smoked salmon and red onions and tomatoes, Adam talked. Something about the restaurant and a fan who clearly recognized him but just waved at him and said thank you before going on her way. 

When it was done, after he'd cut the bagel in half and sprinkled capers over his half, for the slightly sour tang that Adam never quite enjoyed, Adam slid off his stool and came over. 

Adam was comfortable, standing between Sauli's legs, and his hand was warm on Sauli's chest. "Be safe," Adam whispered. "Find joy and laughter and all the success in the world."

Putting his fingers under Adam's chin, Sauli tipped it up and forced Adam to look at him as he'd done so many other times. Something moved deep and dark behind Adam's eyes, and Sauli stretched up to press a kiss on the line between Adam's eyebrows.

"Rajattoman kaunis," Sauli said. "You are always beautiful to me, to those who love you. Do not forget that, baby. Ignore the haters. They don't know you or us. They don't know what has happened."

"I'll try." Adam took a breath. A little shuddery, a little watery, but it was there. "You know," he said and then paused.

"I do," Sauli said, because he knew what Adam meant, because the feelings were still there, different and changed, but not so far from what they once had been.

Then Adam went to sit down, and they shared the best bagel and coffee Sauli had ever had. Sweet with memories and sour with the moment that was yet to come. 

And when it was over, when they were down to crumbs of food and conversation, Sauli stood. He rolled his shoulders and his neck, shifting the tension and the weight that had settled on them. 

"Nähdään myöhemmin," he said. "See you later."

"Nähdään myöhemmin," Adam repeated carefully, mangling the Finnish, as he always did, and making Sauli smile as usual.

Sauli stopped near the door to pick up his overnight bag. He glanced back, but Adam was carefully not watching him leave. Adam's head was down, and his entire focus was on the red travel mug that Sauli had left on the counter and that was now between Adam's hands. 

And over Adam's shoulder, the ocean continued to move, racing toward the shore and back out again. 

Letting himself out, Sauli closed the door and listened for the click of the lock before walking down the hallway. 

There was sand under his feet now. He no longer felt like he was in the shoals with the ground shifting under him constantly, or in deep water, clinging to Adam and trying to avoid being flung against rocks. 

One fist pressed against his chest, biting his lips together, and blinking against tears that weren’t really there, Sauli waited for an elevator.


End file.
